WORTH WATCHING

Robert Zemeckis Gets Awful Notes After Pitching 'Back to the Future'

Though it's easy to remember some of the most iconic films as simply classics, we must not forget that some of those films had a long journey before hitting the big screen, many times with studios preventing a film from getting a greenlight. Though studios make it possible for films to get a big audience, they also stop some truly great and wonderful ideas from getting made with a slew of pesky notes, qualms and creative control. Such was the case with Robert Zemeckis when he first pitched Back to the Future. The movie doesn't need that stupid Biff character, or Doc Brown. And we can probably lose the time travel, too. Watch!

I think my favorite thing about this video, aside from the skewering of Hollywood executives, is that they simultaneously love and hate everything about the script. Of course, you have to imagine that some of these issues, including potentially creepy romance between Marty McFly and his mother in the past, might have seemed very legitimate. Plus, the relationship between Doc and Marty was always considered to be a bit strange until writer Bob Gale cleared up that fact last year and revealed just how a teenage kid and an older, wild-eyed scientist became such good friends. Now I want to know how Zemeckis pitched Forrest Gump.